Forms and Auras Updates from On Alert

trailturtle · August 2012

The Champions team has put together a blog featuring the design decisions behind the On Alert Forms and Auras review. You can read and comment at this link, or you can comment in this thread.

theravenforce · August 2012

Thanks for this link ^^

trailturtle · August 2012

All credit goes to Gentleman_Crush for writing it.

themightyzenith · August 2012

A bit of communication goes a long way with the community. Thank you very much for this

beldin · August 2012

.. and i thought there were some new informations about the Aura-Slots

silviumc · August 2012

Nice read, but even though they "fixed" most Sorcery auras, Aura of Arcane Clarity's still falling behind, unfortunately.

mainscrizz · August 2012

beldin wrote: »

.. and i thought there were some new informations about the Aura-Slots

this. lol

amyjia · August 2012

themightyzenith wrote: »

A bit of communication goes a long way with the community. Thank you very much for this

Quoted For Emphasis.. Thanks a lot for this

somebob · August 2012

silviumc wrote: »

Nice read, but even though they "fixed" most Sorcery auras, Aura of Arcane Clarity's still falling behind, unfortunately.

Agreed totally.

Still, very nice to see some technical stuff from the devs on why they did certain things. Keep it up.

mavrycke · August 2012

totally thought this was going to be about the aura slots as well.

stellariodragon · August 2012

I thought this was going to be about aura-slots as well.

Aura-slots are going to be purely cosmetic, right? I kinda freaked for a moment when I read about the aura powers.

lotar295 · August 2012

I also thought this was concerning the cosmetic FX auras mentioned in the Until field report

itsbrou · August 2012

Reading through the comments I only have to say:

There is no such thing as a <insert trinity role here> power set.

So stop it.

recespieces31 · August 2012

lotar295 wrote: »

I also thought this was concerning the cosmetic FX auras mentioned in the Until field report

me too...

angelofcaine · August 2012

*insert obgligatory "I thought this was going to be about 'Aura Slots' " comment here* :redface:

lordhavelock · August 2012

Thanks for the post/info. Overall I either thought the changes were great (new forms like Concentration and Compassion are awesome) or didn't of little effect to me/my play (most of the Auras I hadn't been using and the AoPM change didn't affect my one character using it, so much that I noticed/cared) with the exception of Enrage.

My big melee DPS/brawler guy (Freeform "Might" toon, think "Hulk Smash" - Not a Tank) feels completely nerfed. He can't seem to punch his way out of a moist paperbag anymore, and even when fighting common mobs he's just worthless. I'm no numbers guy in this game, so I can't tell you exactly what's going on, other than I can no longer use Enrage and Aggressor (which used to work together differently/better), and maybe that has something to do with it? >shrug< I just know he's no fun to play, anymore.

lotar295 wrote: »

I also thought this was concerning the cosmetic FX auras mentioned in the Until field report

From the Report:

R&D Report: (In Development)
...
? Cosmetic FX Auras!
- Special Aura items slot to add a cosmetic FX aura to you character for the ultimate in customization
- Aura items will come in all sorts of varieties, from elemental electricity and fire, glow, to darkness and more!
- Auras will come in many configurations, from adorning hands, to eyes, head, full body and more!

Ok Now that sounds neat/interesting!!! Can we get an update on this?

flyingfinn · August 2012

Next week! Since they are working over the weekend for the Auras....

trailturtle · August 2012

angelofcaine wrote: »

*insert obgligatory "I thought this was going to be about 'Aura Slots' " comment here* :redface:

Have you guys asked about Aura Slots in the Ask Cryptic thread? :biggrin:

lordraiken · August 2012

Alright, what about Auras?

Auras hadn?t been in an interesting place for a long time, with most people only ever using Aura of Primal Majesty or Aura of Runic Protection. In addition, it really felt like people weren?t using the Auras as they were really intended to be used. The intent of these Auras was to provide a powerful buff to your team. After a lot of feedback from players we made some a change that let players Auras provide both a solid team buff while still retaining the ability to perform well solo. Auras now behave uniquely based on what role you are in while they are active.

After making these changes we felt that some powers were still not performing well enough so we made a few more changes. We added new effects to Aura of Ebon Destruction and Aura of Arcane Clarity and we looked at a few other passives that we felt just weren?t in a good place yet; we made significant improvements to Regeneration, Personal Force Field, and Medical Nanites.

Can you tell us what exactly happened to those powers?

oyo32 · August 2012

lordhavelock wrote: »

My big melee DPS/brawler guy (Freeform "Might" toon, think "Hulk Smash" - Not a Tank) feels completely nerfed. He can't seem to punch his way out of a moist paperbag anymore, and even when fighting common mobs he's just worthless. I'm no numbers guy in this game, so I can't tell you exactly what's going on, other than I can no longer use Enrage and Aggressor (which used to work together differently/better), and maybe that has something to do with it? >shrug< I just know he's no fun to play, anymore.

The removal of Aggressor as a form hit the Brick set, damage-wise, hard. There are a couple of topics about this issue though (most recent one being this topic). At the moment, all you can really do right now is just keep on truckin' until Cryptic (hopefully) does something.

Anyway, it's nice to see more interaction/communication with the community. Just please keep it up and don't abandon us.

flyingfinn · August 2012

What!!? Nothing about the Aura Slots???!!

*scowls away*

kaiserin · August 2012

This all leads to new and interesting ways to fill out builds that didn?t have a form, without forcing you to pick up a stat that didn?t match your build or your theme.

This isn't true. Many of my melee builds have been forced into the use of Dex simply because Enrage and Aspect of the Bestial have extremely limiting factors that proc them. Not only that, but they only scale off of one stat where as the ranged toggles get a choice of two. It's quite frustrating.

mavrycke · August 2012

trailturtle wrote: »

Have you guys asked about Aura Slots in the Ask Cryptic thread? :biggrin:

Even if we did, what's the likelihood of a question like that actually getting answered.

No offense, but we've been here longer than you have and we know that we generally don't get anything substantial answered in the ask cryptic. There might be 1 or 2 nuggets of information for people to munch on, but that's it.

But I do like your optimism, it's a nice change of pace.

zedulon · August 2012

These changes all went into the game on June 1st.
June 1st Release Notes

Gravitar did not appear in the game until June 22nd.
June 22nd Release Notes

To quote the News Article:

trailturtle wrote:

Why make these changes?

With the Gravitar 10 man fight, we felt that taking a look at player build diversity and player power choice was a good idea, to properly balance these fights. A few trends popped out as being extremely prevalent, the first of which was the use of Enrage as a ranged damage booster, and the second was the use of Aura of Primal Majesty to fill out every part of a build without much penalty. Both of these things were causing otherwise good builds to be clearly overshadowed and ignored.

In other words, after the June 22nd release of the Gravitar alert, Cryptic studied player trends in that fight. And based on that analysis and feedback, they made these changes on June 1st, more than 3 weeks earlier. --- rest of comment removed by user for fear of being banhammered. ---

jonesing4 · August 2012

zedulon wrote: »

In other words, after the June 22nd release of the Gravitar alert, Cryptic studied player trends in that fight. And based on that analysis and feedback, they made these changes on June 1st, more than 3 weeks earlier. --- rest of comment removed by user for fear of being banhammered. ---

Yeah, that isn't what he said, though.

Do you think they conceived, tested, planned, discussed, implemented, adjusted, and released the Gravitar alert on June 22nd? Like, everything concerning that alert happened on that one day, three weeks after the changes to forms? Or is it more likely that he's saying, in view of the kind of content they had coming up (10-player alerts), they wanted to make some changes?

Unless there is an otherwise good reason for an employee to volunteer to write a feature that explains the decision-making process, and then decide to make up lies and retcon history just for kicks, my vote is that you read this incorrectly.

itsbrou · August 2012

I can't wait for the dev blog that explains the decision making process of PvP.

Hopefully before the end of August, when I will be busy.

zedulon · August 2012

jonesing4 wrote: »

Unless there is an otherwise good reason for an employee to volunteer to write a feature that explains the decision-making process, and then decide to make up lies and retcon history just for kicks, my vote is that you read this incorrectly.

Actually, I was a participant in the discussion thread in the PTS forum asking for feedback about the changes. The changes were motivated by what was happening in Alerts at the time, and how On Alert had made some of the underlying problems much more obvious. The changes had nothing to do with Gravitar.

And I'm not saying that they are making up lies and retconning history just for kicks. I'm saying ... --- content removed by user for fear of banhammering --- ... didn't get posted until 2 months after the changes went live?

elenahall · August 2012

AoPM wasn't nearly as effective as one would wish it were since its no longer stacking all that well for like forever and the stacking seems kind of buggy sometimes., but I still think its an interesting thing to make the other auras more worthwhile.

What is really interesting though is the mentioned changes that lordraiken already highlighted:

'We added new effects to Aura of Ebon Destruction and Aura of Arcane Clarity and we looked at a few other passives that we felt just weren?t in a good place yet; we made significant improvements to Regeneration, Personal Force Field, and Medical Nanites.'

Not only were ebon destruction and especially arcane clarity auras very subpar, but the defense/support passives regen force field and medical nanites always needed a push.

Will be interesting to see what changed there.

stellariodragon · August 2012

Actually, the only thing that that I didn't like about auras is the fact that I had to drop a power to make room for compassion... Hrm...

monaahiru · August 2012

BTW. I want Lovely Auras like with Pink Hearts and Stars as I'm doing Magical Girl toons xD

selphea · August 2012

It seems like IDF was relegated to being an afterthought in the review - it doesn't even feature the stacking mechanic mentioned for forms

And I think Arcane Clarity should just be reworked into Sorcery's Energy Unlock and be done with =p

senshibat01 · August 2012

Of course in a Perfect World.. The Aura your Squishy Caster has can benefit a team in combat. .Then you get FFC to locked out respawn i none shot if you close to anything other then your longest ranged attack. .

you cant move in set a rune signal and your end buff circle.. you have to keep moving or Gravatar bubbles and crushes you. .

The HI PAN is extremely unrewarding in that you punish us heroes. .
and remove our travels for this battle. .

Respawns happen at start point and the Celestial Dragon bell mechanics
dicey.. with 5 in a rail time map. if you loose 3 team in short time.. .. it works nice if someone can team heal at distance and manage the bell.. rune signl and end buff for grimore is ok here.. until the drago nbackshoots u when u are bockign the HI pan ying yang..

Timer seams fine and most teams Ive seen had a blend.. Traditionally the Eastern Dragon was always a Benevolent type as the Japanese Kirin some mischief but not out right adversarial.. the Bell timing the dragon out works until you get Hi-PANS or ying yang..

HOTS joint cooldowns are vicious on non-REGEN self res old style Beastials. from per FTP. None of my Gold to Silver conversions can Tank the Super Villains without bleeding hero stars. the CRIT roll table on Villains bleeds 5k like never before..
The hold res tables are a bit off in best case.. The Henchmen Shot guns are still OP for KB or interrupts and exploits. while blocking with good advantages.. some skewed hit bubble that we never saw in cLosed beta.. repeat testing with multi builds has shown
The Nemesis Missions seam about the same.. but ALERTs suffer from

Smash - Timer gives conflicting audio time left.. or some Super Villain have too many HP 3Million to do with a team of 5 suffering the LEvel down kick for devices and i'm thinking some logarhythms off on slotted gear.
Isee you cant equip items abouve level 30 in combat. .but you can use ones slotted at least once. to reward successfull heros for gainning items.. Im used to the GOLD system of F tabs for switching gear and role. .tailoring gear to opponient made lookign for differant gear worth while..

I think the Crafting slotted system off-set the holes created by mission rewards system
but my legecy devices you cant get anymore anywhere.. do more..
LAst BloodMoon.. Was ncie i topped table and the rewards were meh for a higher level jaded hero.

I miss repulser and eye beam.. on a PA. But the new Invinsable is nice. I guess my Quularr Mini-gun was on my other suit of PA.. I miss the Power Replacement Items..
Teh kooldowns always balanced any certain power after a certain level was made for primary offence items slot.. So i'd fill the Skill Cap with Nemesis Vender Purples.. That i erned over years of tokens and lost al lof them to ftp.. its bitter sweet havign a good memory of the things that excited us in the Iron Angel year
over all B+ for stil lbeing ncie fun
C+ for the downside.

I only cancelled gold here cause of the accounting bug to keep Gld on STO account.. hinesight.. if STO was f2p first.. id stay gold here its a nice value for what flexability your hero has.. for powers and maps travel.

Forms and Auras Updates from On Alert

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